


That Love Thing

by sparklespiff



Series: That Love Thing [1]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-03
Updated: 2006-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-29 16:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklespiff/pseuds/sparklespiff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t <i>think</i> he’s in love with Akutsu-sempai.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Love Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I blame [](http://bnf-brawl.livejournal.com/profile)[**bnf_brawl**](http://bnf-brawl.livejournal.com/) entirely. Thanks to [](http://spurious.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://spurious.livejournal.com/)**spurious** for the quick look-over.

Taichi is fourteen the first time he wakes up with sticky sheets. His first impulse is to tell his mother. She doesn’t ask any questions, and Taichi is grateful, because he doesn’t know what he would have said. There is no reason a dream about watching Akutsu-sempai play tennis should be making his face heat up.

When he gets to school, he finds Akutsu-sempai, who listens to him talk about the new serve he’s trying to learn. He knows Akutsu-sempai is listening because he looks like he isn’t, and forgets all about the dream.

 

Sometimes, when Taichi is at his most blindingly adoring, Jin is tempted to backhand him just to see if the look in his eyes would change. He never does it, but he also never admits that it’s because he doesn’t really want to find out.

Instead he grumbles about the way Taichi smiles too much. It’s annoying and makes him think of kittens. Jin has never been particularly protective, save a year or two in his childhood when he’d thought if he tried hard enough he could save his mother from everything, but the thing is, if someone hurt Taichi, he’d enjoy making them bleed a little more than usual.

 

He doesn’t _think_ he’s in love with Akutsu-sempai. All he knows is that seeing Akutsu-sempai is one of his favorite parts of the day, that the day Akutsu-sempai rejoined the tennis team was possibly _the_ best day of his life, that sometimes it feels like he could watch Akutsu-sempai play forever, that sometimes he shakes a little when Akutsu-sempai is near, that he still feels warm inside every time Akutsu-sempai talks to him.

 

Jin doesn’t give a damn about beautiful things, but that doesn’t mean he can’t recognize them. He’s seen the way people have begun looking at Taichi, girls and boys, even that Sengoku (which is strangely less amusing that Jin had expected it to be). He isn’t fucking blind, so he also sees why Taichi doesn’t respond to any of it, and waits for the boy to come to his senses.

 

Taichi doesn’t think he’s in love with Akutsu-sempai, but he thinks that maybe if he knew what love was, he might think this is it.

 

“I might want to be a surgeon,” Jin says, the day after the medical students come to the high school. Jin thinks they’re ridiculous, with their dreams and ideals, but there’s something about the idea that tugs at him. The challenge, perhaps.

“Because I’d get to cut people up,” he adds quickly, as Taichi says, “I can see you saving people.” The kid’s smile is like the fucking _sun_ , as if he knows exactly which one of them is telling the truth.

 

Taichi doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows that they were walking back from—someplace, he can’t remember, he can’t _think_ \--they were walking back and he doesn’t know what possessed him to grab Akutsu-sempai’s shoulder and go on tiptoe and tug Akutsu-sempai down so he could press his lips clumsily to Akutsu-sempai’s. Taichi doesn’t know why he’s doing what he’s doing and he has no idea what to do with his mouth but it doesn’t matter because Akutsu-sempai is kissing him back. Akutsu-sempai is warm and his arms around Taichi feel so solid and he has never felt safer in his life.

Akutsu-sempai pulls away looking not entirely unaffected and Taichi feels a surge of happiness so strong it feels as if he will never stop smiling. Then Akutsu-sempai says, “That can never happen again,” in a rough voice, and that makes the smile go away.

Taichi has never had his heart broken before, so he has no idea what it is supposed to feel like. He wonders if this is it; it certainly hurts enough.

 

It isn’t even that it would make him fucking _queer_. It isn’t that Taichi is two years younger than him, or that he smiles too much and is too enthusiastic about things.

It’s that Jin isn’t right for Taichi, that it would be impossible anyway. He knows from Taichi’s parents (who are just as crazy as he is; Jin can tell from the way they say they’re _so happy_ Taichi is friends with such a nice boy and mean _him_ ) that Taichi is third in his class; Jin skips lessons to get off with girls in storage closets, girls who have greedy mouths and confident hands and are nothing like Taichi at all. Jin doesn’t give a damn about being caught. He enjoys it, really, and tells himself it is just a coincidence that he never chooses closets in the hallways of Taichi’s classroom.

 

Kissing Akutsu-sempai had been a mistake; Taichi realizes this now, and that he ought to keep his stupid impulses to himself and not bother Akutsu-sempai with them. The idea of facing Akutsu-sempai after what happened is frightening, but the idea of never seeing Akutsu-sempai again is even worse so he goes to school and smiles extra brightly and everything almost goes back to normal even though sometimes he feels like crying. He makes himself smile even bigger those days.

 

“Don’t you get it?” Jin growls one day. “Don’t you see I don’t have anything to give you?” Taichi just smiles and doesn’t move and Jin thinks very seriously that the boy must be insane.

 

“I’m all wrong for you, you stupid kid,” Akutsu-sempai says, and then kisses him, the very briefest brush of lips. Taichi is confused and happy but most of all amazed at how gentle Akutsu-sempai is capable of being. He thinks he might understand the love thing.

 

Taichi grins up at him and holds out his hand; Jin is so surprised that he takes it. Taichi twines their fingers together and Jin is mystified by the strangeness of it all, by the odd warm feeling in his chest. Taichi’s hand in his is small but his grip is strong and Jin can’t help thinking that this might make sense after all.


End file.
